Steven Maradona is just 23 years old, though his feats of strength are impressive regardless of age. But what’s even more astounding is that Maradona — who got his start in strength training with powerlifting — has only been training in weightlifting for less than a year.
And it didn’t take him long to become one of only a handful of Americans to jerk 500 pounds from the rack.
Here’s another angle of Maradona’s PR lift.
227 kg / 500 lbs jerk !!!! Another solid session in the books @lift6for6
A video posted by Steven Maradona (@stevenaay) on
California Strength’s Wes Kitts — a 105kg lifter, Maradona is a +105 — hit a 500 kilo jerk earlier this year, though that lift was from the back rack (still damn impressive in our book).
To be perfectly fair, it’s not the first time Maradona has put 500 pounds overhead. Back in his powerlifting days, the Queens, New York native gained some mild internet fame for push-pressing 500 pounds. Clearly, Maradona has maintained a lot of his raw strength while converting over to the snatch and clean & jerk.
These days, Maradona is focused pretty squarely on the Olympic lifts, squatting “about 2 times a month” in order to keep his incredible base of strength. Here he is recently hitting 300kg for a triple in the back squat. Talk about snappy.
If recent training videos and competition performances are an indication, Maradona’s still got awhile until his clean catches up to this 500 pound jerk, and his snatch is still a few dozen kilos below those of elite superheavies. But Maradona is still incredibly new to the sport, and with a rock solid foundation and some good speed on his side, we’re excited to see how his numbers shape up a year from now.